Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 027

Logan and I continued. When we reached an intersection, he turned left and I turned right. I was on my own. I walked quickly, so quickly that after a couple of blocks, my legs ached. But it was worth it for Tigger.

Oh, Tiggy, where are you? I thought. That question had been worrying me since Friday. Where are you? But there was another question that was even worse. It had been worrying me since Friday, too. It was so bad, I could hardly bear to think of it. The question was, Tigger, are you alive? What if Tigger had wandered away? What if he'd been hit by a car? The driver wouldn't know whom Tigger belonged to. So he'd take my kitten to a vet and explain what had happened, and the vet would say, "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do," and then they'd get rid of Tigger. They'd have to. He doesn't wear a collar with tags.

Dead, I said to myself as I walked along. Dead, dead, dead.

I stuck a poster in a mailbox.

Dead, dead, dead.

I came to a phone pole. Time for the thumbtacks. I pulled the box from my pocket and stuck a poster to the street side of the pole. I was putting one on the opposite side when a voice said, "Who's Tigger?" I jumped a mile. When I turned around, I found a boy who looked as if he were about ten years old. He was peering around me at the poster.

"Tigger's my kitten," I told him, trying to calm down.

The boy nodded seriously.

"Have you seen him?" I asked.

"Maybe. I guess you want him back pretty badly, don't you?" "Oh, yes," I said.

"Is there really a reward?" "Yup." "Well then, okay. Yester- um, no, let's see. The day before yesterday 1 saw a - a gray kitten with tiger stripes." "That's just like Tigger!" I cried.

"And he had short hair - I'm sure it was a he, not a she - and he was, oh, about fifteen inches long - I mean, including his tail. And, um, he answered to the name of Tigger." I looked suspiciously at the poster I'd just put up. "How did you know to call him Tigger?" I asked the boy.

"Because his name was on his collar?" he suggested.

I shook my head. "Sorry. He doesn't wear a collar." The boy didn't look a bit uncomfortable about having told a whopping lie. "What's the reward for?" he wanted to know. "For information leading to finding this cat or something?" "No," I replied crossly. "For finding him. For putting him in my hands." I stuffed the thumbtacks back in my pocket. Then I just walked off. Sheesh. What was wrong with people? Was money the only thing they could think of?

I walked and walked. I papered our neighborhood until I ran out of posters. Then I went home. I found Mal, Jessi, and Dawn sitting on my front lawn.

"We're done!" Jessi announced.

"I was done first," Mal added proudly.

I sat down with them, but as soon as I'd done so, Dawn jumped up.

"We shouldn't be just sitting here," she said. "We should be looking for Tigger." "But I've looked and looked." "Then we should look some more. He's just a baby. He's so little. Maybe he got stuck somewhere." The search for Tigger started out with just the four of us. We grew to seven as Logan, Claudia, and Kristy returned. Then Charlotte Johanssen came by and she joined us. Jamie, Myriah, and Gabbie were about to start a game of Superman Tag (whatever that is), and Nicky Pike was out for a bike ride with his friend Matt Braddock, but all of them stopped their fun and helped us look for Tigger. I was just telling Logan about the boy I'd met while I was putting up posters, when Jamie pulled on my sleeve.

"Mary Anne! Mary Anne!" he said urgently.

I stooped down to his level.

"What's up, Jamie?" "Nicky Pike said if you find Tigger you get thirty dollars." "That's true." "If 1 had thirty dollars, I'd buy eleven hundred racing cars." I sighed. Here we go again, I thought.

"But you know what?" Jamie went on. "I'd rather just have Tigger back." I gave Jamie a huge hug.

Chapter 9.

We did not find Tigger that afternoon. Somehow, I wasn't surprised.

But I was surprised the next afternoon when Jamie Newton said to me, "Let's look for Tigger some more." It was Monday. I was baby-sitting for Jamie and Lucy, and the weather was gorgeous. Being outdoors would feel wonderful. But it seemed to me as if we'd already looked everywhere for Tigger. Every possible place. At least around here, and I couldn't very well take the Newton kids to some other neighborhood in order to go kitten-hunting.

"Don't you want to find Tigger?" asked Jamie.

"Of course I do!" I said.

"Then let's look some more. We might have missed a place. Or maybe . . . maybe" (Jamie's eyes were widening at whatever this new thought was) "he's moved, and he's sitting right in some place we already checked! He might be, you know. We better look everywhere all over again." I smiled at Jamie. "Is this really what you want to do today?" "Yup. You can put Lucy in her stroller. And when we get to your house, we'll ask Myriah and Gabbie if they want to help us look, too." "Well," I said slowly. "All right." When Jamie had made his suggestion, he was sitting at the kitchen table drinking grape juice and eating crackers. And Lucy had just woken up from a nap. So there was a lot to do before we could go Tigger-hunting. I changed Lucy, cleaned her up, and put a new outfit on her. (The lavender overalls she'd worn in the morning were covered with milk, grape juice, and mashed banana.) Then I packed a bag to take on our walk. When you're watching a baby, you can't go anywhere without a bag. In it I put Baby Wipes, a bottle full of apple juice, a pacifier, a spare diaper, and a toy.

When Lucy was ready to go I started in on Jamie. He had a gigantic grape juice mustache, which we got rid of with some scrubbing. Then I found his jacket. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" I asked him as I picked up Lucy and her bag.

"Nope," said Jamie.

"Okay." Lucy's stroller was in the garage. At the garage door, I stopped to put her sweater on. "Are you sure you don't have to go to the bathroom?" I asked Jamie again.

"I'm sure." We went into the garage. I settled Lucy in the stroller and hung her bag on the back. "Last chance for the bathroom," I said to Jamie.

"I'm fine," he replied.

We set off. We were halfway down the driveway when Jamie said, "Mary Anne? I have to go to the bathroom." I sighed. But what can you do? Back we went. Ten minutes later we were on our way again. When we reached the Perkinses' house, Jamie rang their bell.

"No woof-woof," he remarked.

"Chewbacca must be in the backyard," I told him. (Chewy is the Perkinses' big black Labrador retriever. He loves people and gets excited when the bell rings. Usually, you hear galloping feet and excited barks when you push the doorbell.) But very small footsteps approached this time. Then the door opened a crack and Gabbie peeked out. When she saw us, her face broke into a grin. She threw the door open.

"Hi!" she cried, blonde hair bouncing.

"Hi-hi!" Jamie replied excitedly. "Do you and Myriah want to look for Tigger again? Mary Anne's here. She'll help us." "Okay. Let me ask Myriah." The excitement over looking for Tigger was great, and in moments, Jamie and his pals were in my front yard.

"This is where you last saw Tigger, right, Mary Anne?" asked Myriah.

I nodded. "That's right." "Then we'll start here." Myriah, Jamie, Gabbie, and I began whistling and calling and looking in trees and under bushes. But when I pushed Lucy's stroller into the backyard and found myself looking in our toolshed, a place I was sure I had checked at least twelve times already, I began to feel discouraged - and sort of disgusted.

"Lucy-Goose," I said, and Lucy strained her neck back to see me. She answers to that name as well as to Lucy and Lucy Jane, which is her full name. "Lucy Goose, let's go get the mail. I'm tired of this." And I'm afraid, I thought. I'm afraid that someone will find Tigger - dead.